the man from icon

A while back my friend Ollie from work said he wanted to ride up Mont Ventoux for his fortieth birthday. I mentioned that my friends Jo, George and Oli had, […]

audax

six hundred

I can feel tears welling up. My sunglasses are in my jersey pocket so there’s no way I’m going to hide this. I drift backwards from Jo’s side. I look […]

cycling

Brighton Big Dog 2016

Having decided not to race this year’s Brighton Big Dog I helped taping out the course, then faffed about taking photos, filled tea urns for a bit, and then helped […]

audax

Cogidubnus Cheese and Cake Double Century

“Please take a banana. I hate them.” I chase wheels through the southwest fringes of London, from Richmond station over the Thames, out through Bushy Park and over the Thames […]

cycling

Alpine Weekender

Thursday “Not here, you need to be at the North Terminal”. I really should have checked my boarding pass before I joined the huge queue to drop off my bike […]

cycling

Restless

An overwhelming desire to be somewhere else. The overnight ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe. 130 kilometre potter around a corner of Normandy. Lunch and a nap on a beach. The evening ferry […]

audax

Scuffing the edges

Riding on the edge. Not the ragged edge but the blurred edge of what I think is possible. Travelling along ancient ways, drove roads and holloways. Ignoring the red and […]

audax

a tour of Essex with forays over the border into Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk biplanes over rolling Cambridgeshire fields, skylark song the aural equivalent to the shapes of the wind […]

Uncategorized

The Lanes – Gorham’s Lane

Starting in the Ouse Valley Gorham’s Lane is essentially a dead end, you’re unlikely to ride up it unless you live in the tiny village of Telscombe hiding in a […]

Uncategorized

It was just one day

There was a girl I never met. She rode bikes and lived in the same town as me, but it was before I returned to cycling. By the time I […]

audax

The Man of Kent 300

Start, kilometre 0 – Tonbridge, Saturday 20:30 Proof of passage: Sainsbury till receipt, 2 litre bottle of Evian Preparations for this overnight perm haven’t exactly been perfect. Last night George […]

cycling

The Sussex Spring Classic

A couple of years ago I planned a ride for the Sunday of Paris-Roubaix incorporating some inappropriate sections for road bikes on skinny tyres. There are no cobbles or secteurs […]

cycling